sweaty and delirious
by assassinactual
Summary: Sometimes being your girlfriend's hero just means taking care of her when she's sick.


This is pure fluff. Set in an AU after the end of Season 1 where they really did defeat Lophii and no new terrible things happened.

* * *

"… then when we ran into them again in the caf they were pushing these big barrels of the goo around on this cart." Laura was addressing the vampire shaped lump on her bed while she emptied her bag onto her desk. It was nearly sundown and she had just returned from a horrendously long day of classes and investigating whatever crimes against sanity the Alchemy Club was perpetrating. "So Danny tried to – "

Something wasn't right. There hadn't been any snark from Carmilla when she'd mentioned Danny.

Normally, by this point a bleary-eyed Carmilla would've poked her head out to mumble a greeting to Laura. Or, if she was feeling especially energetic, maybe even get out of bed and attempt to drag Laura back into her cocoon of warmth.

But none of that happened. The vampire shaped lump remained a lump.

Of course her sleep schedule had been erratic since her re-resurrection. She'd actually been making a bit of an effort to adapt to Laura's schedule so they could spend more time together. Laura had adjusted her schedule to be more compatible with Carmilla's as well, but she was used to all-nighters and the lack of sleep. Whereas Carmilla was grumpy if she didn't get ten hours or more a day. So maybe she was just tired. Really tired.

Still. She'd always at least stuck her head out and slurred some kind of greeting in Laura's general direction.

"Carm?"

Laura approached her bed cautiously. She was forcefully reminded of the last time something like this had happened. When she'd thrown back the covers on Betty's bed to find nothing but her pillows and a multiple choice card covered in brain juice. But they'd defeated the evil vampire cult and the fish god they served, so it couldn't be that right?

Laura prodded the vampire shaped lump.

"Uhgnnghhhmmmhmmm."

Well, the groan that came out of it certainly sounded like Carmilla. Laura peeled back the covers and only caught a fleeting glimpse of her dark hair before she burrowed under the pillows. "No."

Laura giggled, having forgotten her fear that her girlfriend had been vampire-napped.

"Come on, you lazy thing. Get up. It's after six." That got no response, so she poked Carmilla in the arm.

"Ow." Carmilla finally emerged, with a frowny pout on her face. She was rubbing at her arm.

Laura, at the same time, had jumped back and clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry." Then she paused for a moment and narrowed her eyes. "Wait. I didn't poke you that hard. You were kidding about that vampire fight club, right?"

Carmilla just kept pouting. Laura took a moment to stare at her, as she usually did. While Carmilla was as devastatingly beautiful as ever, something was a bit off about her. She was paler than usual, and not from lack of feeding judging by the blood stains at the side of her mouth and on her shirt. Her forehead was shiny with sweat and her eyes had a dull glazed look. "Are you okay?"

Carmilla scoffed.

"Fantastic." She threw the covers off and struggled to push herself into a sitting position. "Just thought I'd try out the feverish invalid look. How'd I do?" While she was speaking, Carmilla attempted to stand up, failed, and would've faceplanted on the floor had Laura not been there to catch her and guide her back to the bed.

"Yes, clearly you are a picture of perfect health."

Carmilla smiled a wide smile and nodded vigorously, clearly pleased that Laura had fallen for her clever ruse. Laura, not being feverish and possibly delusional, merely rolled her eyes. She gently guided Carmilla back to laying down in her nest of blankets. "What do you even have? You were fine this morning."

Being tucked into the warm bed by Laura was clearly affecting Carmilla. She was struggling to keep her eyes open and slurred a bit when she spoke.

"Vampire flu. You can't catch it. Maybe."

Laura, being so very reassured by her girlfriend's confidence in her non-contagious nature, took several steps back and tried not to breathe too much.

"Okay, well you just get some rest and I'll be over there on the side of the room you're not in so just call me if you need anything, okay?" Laura stood there a moment or two while her instinct to get herself far away from someone possibly carrying a supernatural infectious disease battled with her urge to help an unusually pathetic looking Carmilla. As usual with Carmilla, logic and self-preservation quickly went out the window. "Can I get you something? Water? Blood? Tea?"

Carmilla smiled sleepily at her. "I'm good, cutie," she said as she pulled the blankets back up over her head and once again became a vampire shaped lump.

Laura stared at the lump for a second before shaking her head and turning to desk to do some studying. And maybe do some research on vampire flu.

* * *

As it turned out, information on vampire flu was scarce. Most of what Laura found in her googling was Twilight fanfics and ridiculous conspiracy theories about flu vaccines and vampirism.

Behind her, Carmilla shifted in bed and groaned in pain again.

Any hesitation she's felt about helping early was gone completely. Laura hated seeing Carmilla in pain. So she reviewed what she knew about vampire flu: nothing, except that she couldn't catch it, probably. Which left her to fall back on what she knew about regular human flu. Which wasn't actually all that much either. She'd been a fairly healthy child, so her experience was limited. She remembered hydration was important, though. She was pretty sure of it, at least.

She couldn't decide if it was better to hydrate a vampire with water or blood, so she filled two glasses and carried over to her bed. Where she discovered that she didn't have any hands free to peel back Carmilla's blanket cocoon.

"Carm. Carm? Carmilla."

It took a while, but eventually the blankets shifted and Carmilla's head emerged. She was quite a more disheveled than before, and looked even paler. "Ugh. Laura?"

"Hey, Laura said, smiling slightly. "I just heard you moaning and tossing around and it didn't seem like you were getting proper rest so I got you this." She shook the glasses slightly to draw Carmilla's attention and only spilled a little water on herself.

"Thanks." Carmilla said with a lazy smile. She grabbed the water and took several large gulps, then traded it for the blood. She very purposefully allowed her fingers to brush against and linger on Laura's both times.

"Wow, you're hot." Laura blushed, but only slightly. Because really, it was true in that way too. But that wasn't what she meant. "I mean, you have a fever. I should get you some drugs for that. Is there anything else wrong?"

Carmilla swallowed her sip of blood slowly. "Everything just kinda hurts."

"Okay. Painkillers. Got it." She kissed Carmilla quickly on the top of her head before dashing off to the bathroom. "I'll be right back!"

* * *

"Please Carm?"

"No."

"Come on, it'll make you feel better. It's not like I'm trying to make you take Buckley's."

"No."

It was well into the fifth minute of the standoff. It hadn't taken Laura long to find the medication she was looking for, but that had apparently been enough time for Carmilla's condition to greatly improve, and for her to develop an aversion to swallowing pills.

"God, you really are a cat sometimes." Carmilla nodded, clearly quite proud of that fact. Laura glared at her.

Then, she had a wicked idea.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal. If you take the pills, I'll give you a kiss."

Carmilla frowned, but took the pills from Laura and swallowed them dry. Then, with all the speed a sick vampire could muster, she lunged at Laura and kissed her soundly.

"That's playing dirty, Hollis," she said after the separated. "Don't you think kisses should be given freely?"

"Not when my stubborn girlfriend refuses to take her medicine."

"Do I get another kiss? There were two pills after all."

* * *

Later, after her second kiss, and then several more, Carmilla crawled back into bed and went sleep. Since it was still early for Laura, she curled up on Carmilla's empty bed to get some reading for her Lit class done.

It wasn't long, half an hour maybe, before Carmilla started tossing around again, but this time she wasn't groaning in pain. Laura recognized what was happening and had started towards her bed when Carmilla leapt up.

"Laura!" she cried, her voice sounding small and almost childlike. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn't seem to taking anything in as her gaze darted around the room.

Laura crossed the space between then in an instant. Carmilla's hand was already reaching out for her and she gently took hold of it.

"Hey. Hey, it's okay. I'm here. You're okay." She pulled Carmilla into an embrace as she spoke, so Carmilla's head was against her chest and Laura's arms were wrapped securely around her. This was a familiar position for them to be in, ever since Carmilla had admitted the sound of Laura's heartbeat comforted her.

"I didn't see – it wasn't an evil fish dream." Carmilla said after a long silence. "Just a nightmare. A really fucking weird one. It's stupid."

"It's not. Are you okay?"

She felt Carmilla's tiny nod. "Stay?" Carmilla asked, her voice quiet and muffled by Laura's shirt.

"Of course."

Laura wiggled under the cover and laid down, never letting go of Carmilla. She laid there awake until Carmilla's breathing evened out and her pulse slowed until it was almost unnoticeable.

* * *

 **laura2theletter** : So I might've possibly contracted vampire flu from Carm. It was worth it though.


End file.
